Alan Alda revealed on “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday that he has Parkinson’s disease.
In the interview, the six-time Emmy Award winner said that he found out about his condition — a neurodegenerative disorder that affects movement and sometimes causes tremors — three and a half years ago. However, Alda has been able to live a “full life” and has pressed forward with new projects.
“I’ve had a full life since then,” he said. “I’ve acted, I’ve given talks, I help at the Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook. I started this new podcast.”
The 82-year-old Alda said that he decided to share his condition after he seeing his thumb twitch in recent television interviews.
“And I noticed that — I had been on television a lot in the last couple of weeks talking about the new podcast — and I could see my thumb twitch in some shots and I thought, ‘It’s probably only a matter of time before somebody does a story about this from a sad point of view,’ but that’s not where I am,” he said.
Other celebrities to have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s include Michael J. Fox, Muhammad Ali, Robin Williams, George H.W. Bush and Neil Diamond.
Despite his condition, Alda offered a message of hope for others who are battling the disease and its symptoms.
“This is not to short-change people who are suffering with really severe symptoms,” he said. “But in the very beginning, to be immobilized by fear and think the worst thing has happened to you, it hasn’t happened to you, you still have things you can do.”
Watch the interview above.